Autopower

Autopower Race Rollbar

[3/13/2006] Reviewed by: max S.

Applicable to: '90 - '97 1.8 liter

Autopower Race Rollbar with diagonal

Very happy. Easy fitment. Everything lined up. Very noticable stiffening of the chassis. Looks great. No problems with the soft top. Autopower says the hardtop will fit, but I can see the some problems where the side latches go. I definitely feel safer, and I get less grief from my friends about owning a miata now that it looks tougher.

I had it Powdercoated black for $75. The coating that comes on it looks nice, but comes off easily.

Difficult to remove without leaving damage

Autopower roll bar

I have an older autopower 4 point roll bar. It is not like the new Autopowers
that bolt into your seat belt towers; it bolts through the body and uses back
up plates back near the rear shock mounts and inside the fender wells. It is
a very very solid bar. I had a custom cross tube welded in for a racing harness
buy a pro, it looks like it came from Autopower with it! My bar had a basic
black paint job that is chipped up but it doesnít bother me.

The Autopower is a great product for the $$. Very nice welds and tube/bend
quality. It also made a huge difference in the stiffness of my car, which is
a 1990 that had no cockpit brace to begin with. The bar tied my body together
to the point that my 65mph shimmy is gone! I canít say that the new Autopower
bars are any better or worse but mine will continue to transfer with me from
car to car as needed!!

Difficult to remove without leaving damage

Autopower Rollbar

[7/6/2003] Reviewed by: Michel Hoche-Mong

Applicable to: '90 - '97 1.8 liter

Autopower four-point single-diagonal rollbar with 1 3/4" tubing.

Solidly built product. I'd certainly trust it in a rollover. Minor issues with
the fit under a hardtop.I bought the car with this installed, so I can't say
anything about the instructions or the original paint. However, it seems to
be an extremely well-made bar with strong backing plates. The OEM belts do not
need to be moved and work fine in their original location, although they wrap
around the bar a bit. I don't know how much stiffness the bar added to the car,
but I was able to take out the stock Mazda brace with no noticeable extra flex.
The main issues I've had with it came after I bought a hardtop for the car.
The downtubes come too close to the side latches for them to operate. I ran
without them for some months, then tried some Harddog side clips and finally
ended up just bolting the thing down with plates from Hartzell racing. It doesn't
take me much longer to remove the top than before, but now I have to carry around
a 12mm wrench to do it.

Another problem is that the bar is a really tight fit under the roof. It fits,
but the clearance is about 1mm. When I hit a bump, the bar bangs into the roof.
I fixed this by ziptieing some thin sheets of rubber over the corners and so
far it seems to've worked. No more banging, and my hardtop doesn't seem to be
cracking. Still, I wish it'd been made about 4mm shorter. I have a friend with
a HardDog HardCore; its quality of construction is similar. The HD requires
moving the OM seatbelt retractors but clears the side latches. After comparing
the two closely I'd probably buy an HD next time. The Autopower is a fine bar;
the HD wins out in my book solely because the side latches work.

Difficult to remove without leaving damage

Autopower 4-point rollbar

[4/27/2003] Reviewed by: Neil Nagramp

Unlike the HD rollbars, the Autopower
doesn't relocate the seatblet attachment points so there is no hinderance of
belt retraction. The rearward bars are set as far apart as possible to make
room for a glass rear window. I can see a bit of the main hoop on the top of
my rear view mirror but otherwise rearward vision is not impaired. Chassis stiffness
is also improved in the rear and the 70 mph "shimmy" that I had is
now gone. My only beef with the Autopower is that the rearward braces come off
at an acute angle which causes the backs of the headrests to rub and squeak.
I may try glueing felt on the bar to prevent the noise. Other than that, I'd
recommend it.

Difficult to remove without leaving
damage

Autopower Street Roll Bar

[2/7/2003] Reviewed by: Topless
Autoxer - treynolds@actnm.com

Excellent product. Mine was custom
powdercoated before I saw it so I cannot comment on the paint issue. Fit easily
and was about a 4 hour install including trimming. Becareful because you will
likely break several of those plastic push in connectors that hold the carpet
in place. They are $1.50 each so try to save as many as you can. It does not
interfere even with my AA Best Co cloth glass defrost top. It had enough clearance
that adding padding and a leather cover was not a problem. I was also able to
retain the factory windblocker but the flap (which does nothing anyway) is permenently
in the downward position. It does NOT affect the seat belts in anyway, they
work just like stock.

Very pleased with this and so are
my local club members that have looked at it. I would definately recommend it
to those that do not need a Solo I legal bar.

Difficult to remove without leaving
damage

Auto power 4 point functional roll bar

I live in San Diego so picking up
the Autopower roll bar was simple. I ordered it naked b/c my friend can powdercoat
it for me for nearly nothing. Welds were decent (a bit messy but they looked
better after the powercoating).

The install was a easy. It took about
4 hours from start to finish (going pretty slow - lots of breaks). The only
problem was the backing plates had to be modified a bit b/c they were about
1/8 inch to wide. Besides that...very clean install.

Luckily for me, my friend had an
angle drill (very usefull for that last hole in the rear legs) and a cutting
wheel for his grinder. This made making the cuts in the sheet metal and the
shelf very easy. It was like cutting through butter. One piece of advice. I
was using a web write up over the Hard Dog 4 pt to help with the installation
since the autopower directions are worthless and we cut the rear sheet metal
about 4 inches too much. You only need to cut maybe 1-2 inches back (if that).
The bar is VERY secure and makes me feel much more secure. Great bar...would
highly recommend.

I purchased the bar bare, w/ no paint, and spray painted
it silver metalflakes. This rollbar mounts onto the seatbelt towers, and does
not require the seat belt anchors to be relocated. The 2 rear braces reach into
the trunk tunnels. The front outside corner of the right rear brace mounting
pad has to be chopped off to clear a wiring grommet in the tunnel. Same w/ the
backing plate that mounts from under the car. Other than that the fit is actually
excellent. The rear deck trimming is limited to the silver shelf piece that
unbolts from the car- there's no need to touch the permanent body sheet metal.

I don't really like the welded in bottom bolts on the main
hoop- as you tighten them you can see the mounting pads bend, and you don't
know when to stop. But overall, this is a good design. I prefer this configuration
than the HD's which mount in front of the seat belt anchors (which need to be
relocated awkwardly). Also, the fit is much better than HD, IMHE. Recommended.

I worked alone to install my bar. It took approximately
4 hours from start to finish. The instructions stink, read them and then throw
them away. The installation is straight forward enough to not be a problem.
Planning ahead and having all you tools readily available will make the job
go faster.. One special tool that is needed is some kind of metal cutting tool.
I used tin snips, however a jigsaw or Dremel with a cutting wheel would do.
Every thing else you need should be in the typical Miata owners garage. A suggestion
for easier access the rear braces. Remove the shield in the trunk. The access
for drilling and tightening the bolts is much better through the trunk. .

The Auto power roll bar is a great addition to the vehicle,
the safety margin of having it alone makes it worth while. My car is a 93 and
it did improve handling a bit by stiffing the rear end up. The paint was marginal,
it I had been installing a bar in a sedan where it would not be seen as much
it was fine. In a Miata, it was not up to my standards. I had my powder coated
and it looks great and did not suffer a single scratch when I reinstalled it
after the powder coating. My suggestion again is to install it then take it
out and paint or powder coat and then reinstall. The scratches will occur on
the first install but are not as likely on the second

I am associated with a company that sells or manufactures
this product.

Applicable to '99 +

Autopower 4 point 'Street' rollbar

Had a friend pickup a bar on Friday afternoon (from Autopower
in SD), installed by Saturday nite. I used 3 mechanics, 2 RX-7 owners, 1 6 pack
of beer, 1 case of Coke + other regular tools to install the bar in one night.
It took about ~4 hrs and that's not cutting the metal 'shelf', carpet, or the
trim pieces. Our Miata is leased so I didn't want to do more than drilling 6
holes. All in all, a pleasant project w/ lots of friends involved. For complete
pictorial http//www.tsj-freight.com/jpg/thchen/cars/miata/rollbar

I had no problem with Autopower's paint (I LOVE living in
Socal). Took them 3 wks to build the bar. The bar seems VERY strong. The fit's
decent. Doesn't block the rear mirror. Autopower was more well known to me than
'Hard Dog'. For $205+tax, it's a STEAL.

I bought a Autopower roll bar use. However, it was in great
shape. The roll bar had a few scratches where it had rubbed the metal the the
previous car.

I called AutoPower and explained my sisuation. They faxed
me the installation instrction within 5 minutes. They were very friendly on
the phone. I found the instructions were less than adequate. In fact, the instructions
were only about ten, one line sentences and no pictues. I saw the roll bar before
it was removed from the other miata. This was a big help.

Otherwise, I don't know it the installation would have been
so simple. The places you have to make sheet metal cuts are confusing and unclear.
This is an area of trail and error. Finally after 6 1/2 hours over three days,
I finished the installation. In reflection, I would install this product again
myself.

The aesthetics of the roll bar are very pleasing once I
repainted the bar. Two people are needed to drill and bolt-down the roll bar.
I had to drill the holes from underneath the car, after drilling the first hole
on the top...so I could use the template to guide the drill bit.

The Autopower rollbar is a rigid, well made reasonably priced
rollbar. I origionally liked the style of the racing beat twin hoop style bar
but it offers no protection. After doing some research over the net I found
the best combination of style and protection comes from the Autopower bar. The
first thing I noticed after removing the bar from its packaging was its poor
paint. It looks like the bar wasnt prepped properly before being painted, with
little spots of metal shining through on the main hoop. The instructions should
also be more descriptive for the do-it-yourselfer. Permanent modifications include
the drilling of three holes on each side of the car just to the inside of the
rear fender wells, trimming of the thin sheet of steel under the carpet on the
rear deck, and then carpet itself (this is tricky to do well). With attachment
of the main hoop no driling is required. The six attachment points on the seatbelt
posts use pre-existing holes and seatbelt bolts. Some trimming of the plastic
covers should be done to maintain the aesthetic appearance. I found the installation
to take approximately 4 careful hours. After installation is comleted the swing
of the seatbelts' upper guide is significantly reduced causing some annoyance
with retraction, and if you are as tall as I am you will notice the seats don't
move as far back as previously. Mine are always rubbing the bar lightly and
squeaking. The car does seem stiffer and I believe the pros definately outweigh
the cons (all things considered) of the Autopower rollbar.

Well made, sturdy. Sharp looking, good price. Comes in black
but can be refinished

Installation is everything! Get it done right or the installer
will mess up your rear deck area upholstery(like mine was).

I've seen many other companies offer 2-point non-functional
roll bars and they're a waste! They don't look as good and they're only cosmetic.
So in the unlikely chance that you do roll, you're screwed. This product is
functional and adds stability to the entire car's performance.

This is an excellent rollbar for those who need a functional
rollbar particularly for competition.

It is well fabricated, and when installed is solid. On the
down side it does not accomodate the side latches of a hard top which therefore
results in squeeking of the roof seal against the body. I have not found a fix
other than using a little silicone lubricant on the roof seal. One real beef
was that the roll bar was apparently wrapped for shipping with bubble wrap before
the paint was dry. It took a lot of time (hours) and patience to pick the wrap
off. I really did not have time to ship it back because of a scheduled competition.
Oh yes the installation is not simple. It requires cutting of metal and fabric,
and Auto Power could have done better by supplying cutting templates.

All things considered, it has served me well, I am pleased
with the product, and I would by it again (without the bubble wrap).